This week, Attorney General Eric Holder called the increase in heroin-related deaths an “urgent and growing public health crisis.” Officials in Cuyahoga County project 200 people will die from heroin overdoses this year.
But in what might seem like the most unlikely place of all -- the rural communities of Tuscarawas County -- the drug has had a devastating presence for more than a decade. WKSU's Amanda Rabinowitz has a story of one addict who's found a new beginning.
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Heroin has long been considered an urban problem. In the last year, the drug has spread to the suburbs at an alarming rate, prompting officials to declare a statewide epidemic. But, in the rural communities of Northeast Ohio, heroin has been big a problem for a decade. A group of about two-dozen white, middle-to-upper class Tuscarawas County kids all got hooked on the drug in high school. WKSU's Amanda Rabinowitz shares Sam Hochstetler's story.(more )

Heroin has been declared an epidemic in Ohio. More than 170 people died of overdoses in Cuyahoga County, taking more lives than homicides or car accidents. And there’s been a lot more concern about its spread through the suburbs. But in Northeast Ohio’s rural communities, heroin has been a huge problem for a decade.
A group of about two-dozen white, middle-to-upper class Tuscarawas County kids all got hooked on the drug in high school. The reason? They were bored. The consequences? Addiction, death … and hope.

In the first of a series of reports on heroin abuse in small-town Ohio, WKSU’s Amanda Rabinowitz reports on the ultimate of those consequences and what sprang from it.(more )